League of Legends Champion Spotlight shines on Azir, the Emperor of the Sands

Behold Azir, the ancient Emperor of the Sands, commander of the Shuriman armies, and the latest Champion to fall under the League of Legends Champion Spotlight.

As revealed in August , Azir is a summoner who calls forth Shuriman soldiers to do his bidding, backed by powerful spells that make life difficult for his opponents. "An emperor does not act; he commands," Riot's ZenonTheStoic , aka Champion Designer Daniel Klein, wrote in the Champion Insights section of the Azir reveal. "Internally, we call these champs 'minion-mancers.' Once we knew Azir would take on this kind of kit, we knew it was time to look at what does and doesn't work for these often-problematic designs."

Taking stock of previous "minion-mancer" characters like Heimerdinger, Elise, Malzahar and Yorick allowed Riot to "introduce appropriate trade-offs to Azir's kit," Klein explained. "With these weaknesses in place, we could make the soldiers very strong indeed; imagine if I told you that, given the right setup, your basic attack has 1200 range and hits units in an AOE."